Inspect The Battle Of Midway Created By Craig L. Symonds File Paper Edition

stuff. Midway is right up there with Lexington and Concord, Yorktown, Antietam, Gettysburg, Pearl Harbor, DDay, Iwo Jima, and Ira Drang for being significant to America's military history and prominent in our historical imagination.
This battle can inspire hero worship and thoughts about divine intervention given its events and important role in changing the course of World War II and world history.


Craig Symonds provides a solid account of the lead up to the contest between the navies of Imperial Japan and the United States through final outcome of the ships, planes, subs, men, and nations involved in this clash.
It's perfect for the historian and enthusiast looking for a closer look at this battle without getting to nerdy in the jargon, tactics, or other details that can be offputting for those not steeped in military expertise.
It has a good balance, What stands out most might be how unpredictable, surprising, and brutal combat can be, Whether it's torpedoes skimming into the water, downed pilots avoiding sunburn and shark attacks, or the luck of being undetected by your adversary, Symonds's history illustrates how a million little components add up to one awe inspiring event for the ages and a turning point for the twentieth century.
If I had to pick five books to read around WW, Id put this in there as a must.
A breezy yet detailed read that introduces you to a vast array of characters some youll know others not as much.
It rights some wrongs and misconceptions from the battle and how certain events actually unfolded, If you are just getting into the pacific theater, Id read this immediately following any book on Pearl Harbor.
Excellent military history of the Battle of Midway, Author avoids the trap of taking sides, doesn't call U, S. victory a "miracle,"' doesn't say we won because of democracy or being braver than the Japanese, Just a straightforward analysis of a military battle in which one side had radar US, one side had advanced warning of the other side's intentions thanks to code breaking US, one side was dropping,pound bombs vs.
one side that hadpound bombs, etc, Extremely detailed analysis of the key players on both sides, the context in terms of the larger war for example, the US strategy was that the European theatre took precedence in terms of resources.
Lots of vignettes of individual soldiers who flew into certain death, Particularly riveting is a scene in which the Japanese conduct a war game exercise and the Japanese officer assigned to take the American side offers up a scenario in which the US detects the Japanese attack on Midway Island and launches a powerful strike against the Japanese fleet.
Of course, the Japanese, after Pearl Harbor, believe the US fleet incapable of such an attack and shrug off this possibility.
Their plan is to attack Midway, lure the American fleet from Hawaii into the open ocean and systematically destroy the US fleet.
And of course, the Japanese officer predicted exactly what happened, When considering the truly pivotal events in American history, it is difficult to find many that are as significant as the battle of Midway.
As Craig Symonds notes in his introduction, “there are few moments in American history in which the course of events tipped so suddenly and so dramatically as it did on June,.
” For it was on that day that the United States Navy succeeded in smashing the heart of the Japanese carrier force that had so completely dominated the Pacific Ocean during the first six months of the war there, scoring a victory that changed the course of World War II.
Symondss book provides an account of this dramatic battle, as well as an understanding of the chain of events that led up to the clash between the American and Japanese fleets.


One of the key factors he identifies early on is the growing presence of the “victory disease” infecting the thinking of Japanese naval officers.
An increasing assumption of victory was perhaps understandable, though, given the successes Japanese forces enjoyed at the start of the war.
Much of this success was the consequence of the quality of Japanese equipment, as well as the demanding levels of training and previous combat experience of Japanese forces.
Yet these advantages would prove to be temporary the longer the war wore on, as they were products of a system ill capable of replacing losses at the pace necessary.
In the short term, though, Japan went from triumph to triumph, conquering southeast Asia and dominating Allied forces in the naval battles waged.


Yet American commanders were determined to punch back, Symonds account of the war in the early months ofis one of the great strengths of his book, as he shows how a seemingly minor series of carrier strikes against Japanese forces in the Pacific influenced subsequent events.
Faced with a number of options, Admiral Yamamoto Isoroku ultimately resolved to attack Midway as a means of drawing out the American carrier forces and forcing the “decisive battle” called for by Japanese doctrine.
The overly complicated plan was compromised almost from that start, though, as American codebreakers quickly uncovered some of its basic details.
Armed with this information, the American commander of Pacific forces, Chester Nimitz, set a trap of his own, using all of his available carriers in a bid to cripple the Kido Butai, the carrier strike force that was the core of the Imperial Japanese Navys offensive power.


The outcome was devastating for the Japanese, Symonds relies upon a mixture of published accounts and interviews to reconstruct events, using them to address the myths and misconceptions that have emerged about the battle.
Among the participants whose role he highlights is that of Frank Jack Fletcher, the commander of American forces in the battle.
Long overshadowed by other figures, Symonds credits his cool and experienced judgment for much of the outcome, The pilots are also prominently featured in his account, and he makes clear just how devastating a toll the battle took among the ranks of American flyers as well as the Japanese forces.
Yet he demonstrates how their sacrifice contributed to the American victory, which permanently shifted the balance of power of the Pacific and forced the Japanese to adopt a defensive strategy that could only delay their eventual defeat.


Clearly written and supplemented with a helpful collection of maps and photographs, Symonds book provides an excellent introduction to the battle.
Though not as detailed as Gordon Pranges classic sitelinkMiracle at Midway, it benefits from the insights of more recent studies such as Jonathan Parshall and Anthony Tully's sitelinkShattered Sword, while the extensive coverage of the context of the battle offers a perspective lacking in most other accounts.
With this book, Symonds has set the standard by which other histories of the battle are judged, one that is unlikely to be surpassed anytime soon.
So many histories of the Battle of Midway consider the US Navy lucky in defeating the Japanese Navy at the Battle of Midway in June.
Historian and author Craig L, Symonds, in The Battle of Midway Pivotal Moments in American History, argues that luck wasn't the primary factor in the US victory at Midway.
In the process of showing that there was more than just luck involved Symonds shows how the US and Japanese navies came to be in their respective positions, debunks a myth, and casts a shadow on an American carrier aviation hero.
He also shows how the Battle of Midway was a pivotal moment in World War II, shaping how the rest of the Pacific War would pan out.


"Certainly chance or luck played a role at Midway, but the outcome of the battle was primarily the result of decisions made and actions taken by individuals who found themselves at the nexus of history at a decisive moment.
In short, the Battle of Midwayis best explained and understood by focusing on the people involved, "

Symonds argues that "the Battle of Midway is best explained by focusing on the people involved, " He does this by

focusing on the command staff of the American and Japanese fleets including Nimitz, Fletcher, Spruance, Mitscher, Yammamoto, Nagumo, and others.
He develops the personalities of these leaders before the battle because their personalities played into their decision making, He also looks at how cultural differences between the Americans and Japanese played into their decision making, Additionally, he explores the Pacific War from prior to the war up to the battle itself to show how the fleets came to be in the strategic and tacitical positions they were in and how those positions would effect decision making in the battle to come.
By focusing on the individuals involved and the path to the battle, Symonds set not only the stage for the battle but the pieces to be involved.


Once he comes to the battle itself, Symonds manages strike an excellent balance between being detailed and capturing the attention of the reader.
He goes into great detail about the classes of the ship and the types of planes involved, He also explores the decisions made on both the fleet staff level, ship/air group level, and even down to the squadron level.
He gives a blow by blow account of the air strikes on both sides, sometimes down to the level of individual planes and crews.
In doing so, he tells how the strikes were either successes or failures and explains why, It isn't difficult to to lose the attention of the reader, especially one that isn't a military or naval history anorak, when getting into such detail but Symonds did so while still engaging the reader and keeping things interesting.


The Battle of Midway also explores the role of something that, as an amateur radio operator and radio hobbyist, is close to my heart: Communications Intelligence.
COMINT played a key role in the Battle of Midway and in some circles a myth has grown up that US Navy code breakers were able to provide the fleet with an order of battle and battle plans that enabled a US victory.
Symonds demonstrates that while the code breakers and analysts made a significant contribution to victory they most certainly did not provide a full order of battle and set of battle plans that gave the US fleet leadership a key to certain victory at Midway.


Admiral Marc Mitscher became a hero of American carrier aviation later in World War II via his exploits with the Fast Carrier Task Force but this book casts somewhat of a shadow on Mitscher's actions at Midway while in command of the USS Hornet.
Of the three US Navy carriers involved in the battle, Hornet contributed the least as Symonds shows in his account of the battle.
The Hornet's squadrons performed poorly due to leadership problems and the after action reports attempted to cover it up.
Symonds explores the Hornets actions and attempts to explain what, in the absence of any after actions reports other than Mitschers, may have happened and why.
He also confronts the issue of how Admiral Fletcher was moved aside and Admiral Mitscher moved on to further combat command.
Personally, I would like to think that Mitscher took Midway as a learning experience in combat command and applied what he learned toward future successes such as the Marianas Turkey Shoot.


"None of this detracts from the crucial contributions of the code breakers, but it does remind us that the subsequent decisions made by the commanders on the scene were more complex and openended than might otherwise be assumed.
The Battle of Midway was not won by the code breakers alone but by the analysts, the decision makers who trusted them, and finally by the men who drive the ships, manned the guns, and flew the planes at the point of contact.
Certainly there is enough glory for all of them, "

Symonds makes clear that that while COMINT played a significant role in victory, it was not the key in victory.
He shows that decision making was the key role, not just decisions made by American leadership but Japanese leadership as well.
He shows that the decisions to made weren't always easy, Sometimes the code breakers and analysts put leadership in the position of making informed decisions but not always, There were times when the decision making process was complex and made with incomplete information and this often where cultural differences and strategic considerations effected tactical decision making.
He also gives credit to the men who carried out the plans of the decision makers with the bravery and determination to push the attacks home despite the destruction of entire squadrons VTfor example.


Finally he describes how Midway was a pivotal battle, Through the almost complete destruction of the Japanese Navy's striking force, the US Navy didn't just balance the scales in the Pacific aftermonths of Japanese domination, they tilted the sales in American favor.
The Japanese lost four aircraft carriers and squadrons of planes and pilots, They were never able to recover from that loss the US had the industrial capacity and manpower reserves to replace what they would lose not only at Midway but in the hard slog across the Pacific to come, the Japanese did not.
While the were able to make the US pay a heavy price for victory in the Pacific, the Japanese would never be able to stem the tide of the American advance.


While secondary sources were used in writing The Battle of Midway, Symonds made heavy use of both oral histories and interviews in research for the book.
No doubt the use of those primary sources helped him explore the role of communications intelligence and tell the detailed story of the carrier strikes in the battle.
Simply put this book is well researched and Symonds presents the results of that research in a very interesting, very engaging, and very readable form.
Not only that, I consider it a very balanced look at the battle, Symonds grinds no axes, shows no allegiances toward any particular personalities, and points out mistakes where they are made regardless of who made them.
If you are a student of World War II or Naval history I strongly recommend this book, .